Health Policy urology

The practice of performing concurrent and overlapping surgeries in hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers across the nation has come under scrutiny by the Senate Finance Committee, and hospitals and surgeons are on notice that some practices that may have been commonplace in the past need to change.

The era of value-based health care has arrived. And while the idea of basing reimbursement on quality and efficiency rather than volume of care is good in theory, the majority of urologists say it will be difficult to carry out, according to Urology Times' 2016 State of the Specialty survey.

Over the past several months leading up to the November presidential and congressional elections, organizations representing urology sought to persuade members of Congress to bring sense and reason to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which nearly 5 years ago gave a “D” rating to PSA-based screening for prostate cancer.

In this exclusive interview, Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, discusses alternative payment models, outlines what resources are available for practices, and provides an overview of the three options practices have for participation in the Quality Payment Program.